Thane is third Indian city to join LED project

NEW DELHI: Thane in Maharsatra is now the third Indian city to become a part of The Climate Group’s global LED project, which aims to swiftly implement LED lighting on a global scale.

The city follows Kolkata and Haldia in West Bengal, which have both featured LED trials and already received glowing reports from residents who live in areas lit by the new LED street lighting.

Drawing inspiration from the Kolkata LED pilot, Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) in the state of Maharashtra has said it will retrofit 314 existing HPSV streetlights with LED luminaries in two areas of Thane city.

The project is a collaboration between TMC, the Government of India's Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and Maharashtra Energy Development Agency (MEDA) functioning as State Designate Agency (SDA) of BEE for Maharashtra, and will cost around US $300,000 – a figure that will be shared equally by the Thane Municipal Corporation and Govt of India’s Ministry of Power.

The Climate Group will facilitate and assist TMC in developing technical specifications and tender documents for procuring the LED luminaries, undertaking joint technical evaluation of the bids that would be received from interested parties, extending technical backstopping during implementation and undertaking post implementation performance monitoring of the LEDs over a period of time.

In June, The Climate Group assisted Haldia Development Authority (HDA) in developing and evaluating the technical and financial specifications for the tenders from the companies for the Haldia LED pilot. HDA plans to install 290 LED street lights on HPL link roads in the industrial West Bengal town. Total investment has been budgeted to US $ 322,000 and is fully being borne by HDA. The Climate Group will also provide technical support during implementation of the project and carry out post installation performance monitoring of the LEDs, similar to Kolkata.

The LED pilot in Kolkata has almost reached the half way mark; around 127 of the 273 planned LED streetlights have been installed. Monthly performance monitoring of the lights has been carried out since January and an interim report with the performance analysis is currently being prepared for the Kolkata project.

The Kolkata LED pilot was a groundbreaking project and the subsequent Haldia and Thane projects will inspire other leading cities in India, as well as the rest of the world, to advance a Clean Revolution in the lighting sector.